


Brothers In Arms

by Ravenspear



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-09
Updated: 2012-09-26
Packaged: 2017-11-05 02:25:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 4,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenspear/pseuds/Ravenspear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of shortfic based on twitter/tumblr prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Loki/Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki/Steve, scales.

Steve takes to watching Loki in his cage, in the days before Thor is to bring him back to Asgard.

It's for safety reasons, and his own peace of mind. He needs to know that Loki is trapped, that he can't hurt anyone.

But after the second day, it's also about *Loki*. It's about drawings Steve'll never make, but imagine. It's about the art of Loki's body, his movements. The way his skin, his _form_ , shifts.

Loki's eyes are red and slit-pupilled, and his skin is green metallic scales. 

And his teeth are very sharp when he smirks around a forked tongue. "Like what you sssssee, Captain?"

Steve's hands twitch, but he doesn't reply.


	2. Thor/Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor/Steve, sparring.

Steve hits the mat with a force that drives the breath from his lungs, and that he thinks might leave an imprint behind when he gets up.

As he tries to remember how to breathe, Thor's face appears above him, flushed and wild-haired and grinning from ear to ear. "Are you well, friend?" he asks, reaching out a hand.

His smile is infectious, and Steve can't help but return it. "Never better," he says as he grabs Thor by the wrist - strong, steady pulse against his palm - and lets him pull him up like he weighs absolutely nothing (and that still gives Steve a little thrill every time). "Again?" he adds as he catches his feet, probably leaning into Thor a bit more than is strictly appropriate.

"I would enjoy that," Thor replies, clapping him on his shoulder, and Steve likes how it stays there. "And afterwards, would you be amenable to pizza?"


	3. Tony/Bruce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony/Bruce, shark-repellant.

It isn't, to be fair, the stupidest thing Bruce has found Tony working on.*

It's close, though.

"Shark-repellant, Tony? Really?"

"Well, why not?" Tony asks, as if a stupidly comic book-y thing like that was totally reasonable. 

The baby bullshark that occupies the huge aquarium Tony has had installed in the lab looks unimpressed with both of them.

"Shark. Repellant," Bruce tries, hoping maybe if he speaks slower, Tony might come to his senses.

"So? You carry that disgusting citrus-y spray with you everywhere!"

"I'm allergic to insect bites, and insects are everywhere. It's not the same thing."

"Did you know sharks are found in *all* seas? And that a handful of species can actually be found in freshwater rivers? Sharks are a lot more common than you might think, Bruce."

"You're insane."

Tony hmpf's and turns back to his experiment. "You say that now, but just wait until the next time a villain drops one of us in a shark tank. You'll be singing my praises."

"Insane," Bruce repeats.

 

 

*That honor belongs to the whiskey-flavoured lube that had, seconds after Bruce's discovery of it, mysteriously ended up in the trash.


	4. Bruce/Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce/Steve, h/c.

It is, of course, Tony's fault.

Tony is the one that decides that it's a perfectly sound idea to leave a very possibly concussed Steve (he'd been slapped with a car) with Bruce while he goes back to helping Thor take down the rampaging beast of the week.

"I should go back and help," Steve says, trying to get up, and it's a testament to how fuzzy he is when Bruce can easily just push him back down onto the crate he'd seated him on.

"No. What you should do is to look into this light," Bruce tells him, hand at the side of Steve's face as he turns it so he can shine his pocket light into the captain's eyes, and is pleased by his pupils' fairly normal reactions.

Steve closes his eyes as soon as the light goes off, and he slumps a little, head for all intents and purposes _resting_ in Bruce's hand.

Bruce finds this an exceedingly awkward situation.

Not as awkward as a second later when Steve _turns and nuzzles his hand._ "Your hands are soft," he slurs, and yeah, maybe tearing his hand away like it's been burned is a bit of an overreaction, but Bruce really doesn't need this. Really, really doesn't.

Steve almost falls over when he loses Bruce's support, but manages to save himself admirably. He blinks confusedly at Bruce for a few seconds, and Bruce can see when he realizes what exactly he'd done; the blush is very obvious. "S-sorry, Doctor Banner! I didn't- I- I mean, I-"

"It's alright," Bruce cuts in, swiftly, pasting on his best noncommitting smile as he starts reorganizing his first aid pack. "You're woozy. I get it. Maybe you should try to make yourself comfortable and rest until evac comes and gets us?"

Steve looks like he might want to protest or explain or just simply talk more, but after a few painfully long moments he slides down on the floor to sit leaned against the crate. "Yes, doctor," he sighs, and the rest of their stay in the abandoned storefront is silent.

 

(...But of course it doesn't _really_ end there. Bruce is never that lucky.)


	5. Fury/Coulson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fury/Coulson, hurt!Fury.

Nick Fury takes to bulletwounds much the same way he takes to pretty much anything else he doesn't like. With scowling aggravation, and scant patience.

"Sir, you know you are supposed to stay off that leg for at least another week," Phil says levelly, trying very hard _not_ to sound so chiding.

Fury glares at him, and demonstratively walks (well, limps) across the kitchen to get his usual coffee cup (for some reason, he really likes the one Phil's niece made him for Christmas one year), and then back to the coffee maker. "My leg is _fine_ ," he says, in that way that tells Phil he'll tolerate no dissent. "And I can't carry my coffee with goddamn _crutches_ ," he adds as he limps past Phil, back into the living room and the couch.

Phil frowns and turns after him. "Maybe I should take a few days off?" he suggests as Fury picks up his dogeared copy of King Rat.

Flipping the book open, Fury snorts. "And leave the children unattended? I'd like New York to still be _standing_ when I come back from sick leave, Phil."

With a sigh, Phil joins him on the couch. "I want to be here," he says, after a minute's silence. _I want to take care of you,_ is what he means.

Fury doesn't look up from his book, but does rearrange himself on the couch to get his leg into a better position, and if he happens to end up a bit closer to Phil... Well, no one would ever be able to prove anything. "Well, now that you actually _are_ , you can pass me my reading glasses."

Phil looks around for them, and finds them on the backrest. On _Fury's_ side of the couch.

Smiling only very faintly, he slides his arm past Fury's shoulders to pick the spindly, wire-rimmed things up, and drops them in Fury's lap.

He lets his arm stay where it is.


	6. Loki/Tony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki/Tony, the team finds out.

"I told you," Loki whispers, smirking into the back of Tony's neck, hands heavy and cold on his shoulders. "You knew which way this would go."

"Shut up," Tony bites out, focuses on the robot taking shape underneath his hands instead.

"So angry, so _betrayed_... Tell me, did your Captain yell, or did he just look disappointed?" Loki continues, hands sliding down his back, soft and teasing, coming to rest at his waist as Loki's lips and tongue draw patterns along Tony's hairline. "Did he look _disgusted_ to know that you'd lie with the likes of me?"

"I told you to shut up!" The growl doesn't sound like anything he'd ever thought could come from him, agonized and broken and vicious.

"And now you're all alone again, in this empty, empty tower..." Loki half-sings, half-sighs. "You should be kinder to me, I think. You've lost your friends; can you really afford to lose me, too?"

And no. No, he doesn't think he can.

"I'm sorry," he says.

He honestly isn't sure who it's intended for.


	7. Thor/Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve/Thor, 2014!AU, sparring
> 
> Based on [this set of Avengers/2014!Supernatural crossover notes](http://zekkass.dreamwidth.org/459812.html).

They get one hour alone with each other every day. Thor can’t in good conscience leave his vigil over Sam Winchester any longer than that, and Steve is the best scout and scavenger the camp has, and spends long hours in the croat-infested outside.

So they have a weekly schedule. Monday, Thursday, and Saturday, they have sex, because sex is _Important_ with a capital _"I"._ Friday, they _don’t_ get drunk on Chuck’s moonshine, but allow themselves to pretend for a little while. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday, they spar, because they need to keep their skills sharp, and the only ones in camp who are a match for them is each other.

Today is a Wednesday. 

Thor hits the soft dirt with a muffled sound, and he laughs as he looks up. “That was a good move! I was totally unprepared!” 

Steve smiles back. “Yeah, I’ve been working on it since that thing last month,” he says, and they both steadfastly refuse to think about how ‘that thing’ was three people dying. “As for you being unprepared, if you stopped paying so much attention to my _ass_ , and spent more time watching my _feet_ , you _might’ve_ seen it coming.” 

“Ah, but why would you wish me to deprive myself of one of my few remaining true pleasures?” Thor replies, smiling widely. “It is, after all, a very fine ass!” 

Steve rolls his eyes and reaches out his hand to pull Thor to his feet. 

Which means he’s overbalanced enough that when Thor swipes his leg out to trip him, he succeeds, and Steve goes down like a sack of potatoes. 

He does make sure to land with his elbow in Thor’s solar plexus, though, which affords him a few seconds’ head start on the wrestling competition this morning’s sparring is turning into, _which_ means he can deliver a quick kiss to Thor’s gasping lips before he tries to put him in a lock. 

He kind of wishes it was Thursday. 


	8. Natasha/Clint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint/any, biting.

Natasha doesn’t have very much time after she gets her orders, so when she finds Clint at the firing range, she simply grabs him and drags him into the weapons locker.

“How long?” he asks, already dropping to his knees, dragging her zipper down as he goes, and she shivers as one of his hands grabs hot and harsh at one of her thighs.

“One month, maybe two. Plane leaves in fifty-three minutes,” she replies and peels the leather of her uniform off, lets Clint slide it down her legs to pool at her feet.

Clint’s breath is warm through her panties as he lets out an angry breath. “ _Two_ fucking months? We’ve been pulled from undercover duty, so what could take that long?”

“I don’t know,” she replies, leaning back against the wall as she crooks a knee over Clint’s shoulder. “I’ll be briefed en route. And is complaining really what you want to spend our last minutes on? _Get on with it_ , Barton.” Her last words are a growl that trails into a hissed _‘сука’_ when Clint bites down hard on the inside of her thigh.

Clint is never careful or hesitant when he bites, and Natasha feels her heart start to race at the lovely, sharp pain of his teeth against sensitive skin, and she knows she’s bleeding when he pulls back and licks at the mark.

She kind of wants to drag him up from the floor and taste her blood in his mouth, but she wants him even more to stay on his knees. “ _More_ ,” she growls.

And he provides, lines of bites up both her thighs, red and sore and bleeding, and she comes - moaning and cursing and twisting her fingers into his hair so hard her knuckles are white - as he delivers a bite just where thigh meets buttocks, and she’ll be feeling that burn every time she moves, more than any of the others. 

(And for two months, she’ll prod at them; poke and pull so they’ll never quite heal until she’s home again. Where Clint can give her new ones.)


	9. Loki/Clint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki/Clint, angel!AU, Lucifer!Loki and Uriel!Clint

Lucifer smiles (it is not joyful, not even close) as he curls his hands around Uriel's heart, hold that heat he so desperatly wants, that blazing fire he so desperately misses in his cold, frozen hands. "Love me," he demands, wrapping his wings around the two of them, Uriel's fire casting wicked shadows across the feathers. "Tell me you love me, that you'll follow _me_ ," he demands, and he hates how desperate he sounds, how need has crawled into his throat and spills out into his voice without his permission.

And Uriel looks up, and his eyes are cold and blue, not his own at all (and how that hurts, that the only way for Lucifer to have this is to _take_ it). "Of course I love you, brother. Of course I'll follow you," he says, warm hands framing Lucifer's cold, frostbitten face. "What do you need me to do?"

Lucifer's heart maybe breaks a little, but no matter. He has Uriel's love, and Uriel's obedience, if not Uriel's spirit.

Two out of three isn't bad.


	10. Bruce/Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce/Steve, zombie-apocalypse!AU

There are a lot of things Bruce doesn't let himself be.

One of them is forceful and impulsive (he has enough of that on the days when he struggles with the mutated infection coursing though his veins; needs to actually _feel_ in control when he is), another is selfish (he unleashed this plague, and for that he deserves nothing but suffering).

But right now Steve sits in his makeshift clinic, battered and bruised, and Bruce can still feel the echoes of the heart-stopping terror that had overtaken him when the infectee (he never calls them zombies, just _can't_ ) had gotten close enough to go for Steve's throat, and Bruce doesn't _care_ if it's impulsive or selfish, because he's just so _relieved_ , so he grabs Steve by his dogtag chain and drags him in to kiss, wet and desperate and needy.


	11. Bruce/Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce/Steve, fantasy!AU.

"So tell me," Bruce pants, almost stumbling over a fallen branch as Steve drags him through the forest, " _why_ are we running from murderous kobolds, as opposed to setting them on fire?"

Steve turns his head halfway back and grimaces. "It's really not their fault," he says, his breath perfectly even, damn him. "Tony started it."

Bruce groans. "By Wee Jas' tits, I _told_ you you should have let me use my Force Cage spell to keep him from running off and insulting people."

"Don't disrespect your god that way," Steve scolds - ever pious - and that is adorable, it really is. "And yes, next time I will defer to your judgement on whether or not Tony is competent enough to avoid making baby kobolds cry."

"Baby kobolds can't cry; lizards don't have tear ducts."

Bruce can practically _hear_ Steve roll his eyes. "All right. It _shrieked_. Happy?"

"Not even nearly," Bruce tells Steve's neck. "You're all lucky the moon isn't full tonight."


	12. Natasha/Clint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha/Clint, apoca!fic.

They make the decision together, without words; it’ll be just the two of them, and no one else.

(This is _after_. After Thor disappeared to what he said was the Land of the Dead to question its Queen as to why she was letting her subjects roam, and didn’t return. After Tony and Pepper started showing symptoms, and locked themselves into their suites in the Tower. After Chicago fell, and Steve with it. After Bruce walked off into the night with a smile as brittle as glass.)

No one else can keep up with them, and as harsh as it sounds, they can’t let themselves be weighed down by dependents. Not it they want to maximize their chances of survival, and they _do_. So while other survivors gather in fortress-communes or travel the cracked highways in motor convoys for some sort of mythical safety in numbers, Natasha and Clint are a lean, lightning-quick, all-terrain unit. They travel on bikes (faster than walkers, easy to build and repair, require no fuel, an abundance of spare parts to be found), sleep on rooftops while they scavenge towns and neighborhoods clean, move on before they attract enough walker attention that getting out would be complicated, keep to low population density places when not scavenging, building tents in treetops if they want to rest for a few nights before running again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Other people ( _Tony_ ) might have said that it wasn’t any way to live, forever running. But a lot of those other people are dead, and Natasha and Clint are _alive_.

\-----

Clint wakes to Natasha singing under her breath, sitting cross-legged on top of a ventilation intake, sharpening their knives and machetes to razors’ edges, and he knows enough Russian to understand the overly depressing, gritty gist of the the song, and to wish Natasha had a less pessimistic-sounding repertoire.

He curls up tighter in his sleeping bag, and watches the sun rise over the rooftops of a dead city to the shifting cadences of Natasha’s voice.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

They’re alive. And alive has always been more than enough.


	13. Ensemble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers, Criminal Minds!fusion.

“You have reached Wade and his little yellow boxes; what can I do for you, Captain Hunky?”

“...Stop calling me that, Wilson,” Steve says, grimacing at the his phone and really, really wishing he hadn’t put it on speaker.

“Ah, you have made our brave leader blush, my friend Wade!” Thor booms, smiling like he’s having the time of his life and Steve glares at him because they’re standing in the middle of a crime scene, and the local police is watching them, a lot of them frowning, and yeah, this is going to be great, Steve can just tell. God, he wishes Pepper wasn’t on maternity leave.

“ _Back_ on point,” Steve demands, and thankfully Thor lets it go, and Wilson isn’t talking for once. Thank God for small mercies. “Wilson, have you been able to find any intersections in the victims’ lives?”

Wilson, being Wilson, goes off on something of a tangent, and somehow ends up discussing one of the victims’ harddrive (apparently she’d pirated Golden Girlsm and was sullying the Holy Grail of televison by not paying for it), before finally settling on “Not yet, but my hacker senses are tingling and thewhiteboxissayingsomethingaboutlibrarycardscallyoubacklaterbyeeeeeee~” 

Wilson hangs up and Steve rolls his eyes, before turning back to Thor, who’s studying the walls and the blood splatter. “Any thoughts?”

Thor’s usually so happy face is blank and his eyes are dark. “I believe we were mistaken when we ruled the first two killings _rage_ -killings,” he says distantly, fingers coming up to brush the wall, carefully avoiding the bloodstains, so as not to smear them. “He wasn’t angry at all,” he continues softly, squatting down and narrowing his eyes as he sweeps his gaze across the room, studying the floor and the outlines of the bodies. “He was _afraid_. Terrified.”

“She,” Bruce says as he comes around the corner from the kitchen, shuffling awkwardly around the lingering police officers and technicians, cuffed feet not giving him enough slack to take proper strides. “The murderer is a woman. _And_ can I just point out that I had to _shuffle_ all the way in here from the car? That’s pretty mean, what with how I’m actually helping you with your case.”

Steve’s frown deepens. “You’re not even supposed to be _out_ of the car, Doctor Banner. Where’s Agent Stark?”

Banner raises an eyebrow. “Tony? I think he recognized one of the reporters, and that they’re exchanging numbers.” He shuffles further into the room. “Anyway, can we get back to the part where we discuss actually relevant information, like how the murderer picks his victims?”

“Did you not just say the murderer was a woman?” Thor asks, bless him.

Banner looks everything but impressed with them and their inability to see what he sees in the crime scenes. “ _Yes_ , but she doesn’t _pick_ the victims. The man does that.”

“We’re looking at two unsubs?” Steve asks, just as Natasha appears in the door. “Where are Barton and Stark?” he asks her, and ignores Banner shuffling around to take closer looks at the bloodstains on the floor.

“Stark is discussing his new book with a reporter friend, and Clint’s found a perch to crowd-watch,” she replies, looking over the room, until her eyes settle on Banner. “Doctor Banner,” she says, voice softening, and Steve will never understand her and Tony’s sympathy and affection for a violent serial killer. “I think you were about to explain what was so important that you felt the need to escape the car?”

Banner looks up at her, eyes fond as he smiles apologetically. “Ah. Yes.” He turns to Steve. “No, Steve, you aren’t looking at two unsubs, technically. Or, rather, you’re looking at two unsubs sharing the same body.”

“Two dissociative personality states?” Thor asks.

Bruce smiles again, but this time it’s generically friendly; a guarded expression. “Yes. I, ah,” he licks his lips, eyes falling briefly to the floor before he looks up again. “I do have some experience with the situation,” he finishes.

“Oh, so this is the murder scene!” Tony says cheerfully as he walks in, and Steve silently blesses the man for dispelling Banner’s sudden growing tenseness. “Oh, that’s a _lot_ of blood.” He grimaces at the room. “Maybe I should have waited outside. This is really very not my style. Too real. Can I leave again? And you can snap me some pictures? I much prefer pictures.”

“I’m still amazed that you ever got on this team,” Banner says absently as he kneels down for a closer look at where Cheryl Williams had been lying before the coroner removed her body.

“What can I say?” Tony replies, looking up at the roof to avoid the bloodstains, and making a face at the faint blood splatter that had made its way onto the chandelier. “People just love the Stark name. Also, how about those pictures? Because the smell is _really_ starting to get to me.”

Steve sighs. “Odinsson, could you please get him out of here?”

“Of course. Come on, friend Tony! Let’s get you back outside.”

“Thanks, Thor. Appreciate it. And oh, hey, I found a shawarma joint down the street; are you hungry?”

“I could eat,” Bruce says, standing up. “Prison food is not as good as you might expect.”

Steve is entirely, painfully aware at the increasingly judging looks the local police are giving them, and decides that yes, Bruce and Tony really, _really_ need to go. “Banner, go with Agents Stark and Odinsson. Odinsson, I’m putting you in charge of the two of them. Stark? Try not to offend anyone.”

Tony salutes sloppily as they head out. “Sir, yes, sir.”

When they’re gone, Steve looks at Natasha, who he swears is smirking at him, even through her lips are perfectly smirk-less. “So how about we actually do some work, Agent Romanova?”

“Yes, sir. Should I get Clint?”

“Yes. And call Wade back. On _not_ speaker.”

He can’t believe it’s only eight in the morning.

 

~~And then an entire episode of CM rolled past with Avenger stand-ins, and they discovered the killer to be a lady who killed because of [reasons] and Tony almost died in the course of the episode, but Thor saved him at the last second, the unsub was apprehended, and Deadpool got off a final quip before credits.~~


	14. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve, cyborg

Steve isn’t really sure what he’s seeing.

Or, well, he _is_. But he’s not sure what he _feels_ about seeing it. Because this is his life - his personality, memories, emotions - broken down into codes of ones and zeroes in one of Stark Industries servers.

The violation he'd felt when he woke up ( _body cold and alien and wrong; titanium bones and diol blood and plastic skin_ ) is nothing compared to _this_ , to know that Tony's made a _backup copy_ of him, like he's a _thing_.

Like if he didn't make it back from a mission, the Avengers could just build themselves a new Steve Rogers, nevermind the copy that died. 

Like there's no such thing as a soul (or if there is, that it doesn't _matter_ ).

He feels like throwing up, or like crying, and punches the wall when he remembers he _can't_ anymore (he's just a _thing_ ).


End file.
